←back to thread

Software Friction

(www.hillelwayne.com)
141 points saikatsg | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
WJW ◴[] No.40716351[source]
> What about event planners, nurses, military officers?

As a Dutch ex-Navy officer, we just called this "friction" as everyone had read Von Clausewitz during officer training and was familiar with the nuances of the term. Militaries overwhelmingly address this problem by increasing redundancy, so that there are as few single points of failures as possible. It is very rare to encounter a role that can only be filled by a single person, a well designed military organization will always have a plan for replacing any single individual should they accidentally die.

replies(3): >>40716751 #>>40716762 #>>40716962 #
pjc50 ◴[] No.40716962[source]
"The graveyards are full of indispensable men" -- attr. Napoleon

"I can make a brigadier general in five minutes, but it is not easy to replace a hundred and ten horses" -- attr. Lincoln (exact words vary by source)

It's noticeable how few computer wargames simulate any of this, instead allowing for frictionless high speed micromanagement.

replies(11): >>40717079 #>>40717152 #>>40717994 #>>40718104 #>>40718606 #>>40719587 #>>40720084 #>>40721062 #>>40722174 #>>40722658 #>>40734334 #
1. ranger207 ◴[] No.40719587[source]
Your best bet is probably actually shooters. There's several games that integrate elements of RTS games on top of FPSes, like Planetside 2, Natural Selection 2, Hell Let Loose, Squad, etc. In all of these the individual soldiers are individual players so you can't hardly micromanage them even if you wanted to